Best not to mention the I-word

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Howard and Latham will be on safer ground dealing with domestic issues, says Michelle Grattan.

John Howard first heard about the killing of Iraqi Governing Council head Izzedin Salim while recording an interview for ABC TV's Lateline on Monday. It was instructive to watch the PM's reaction when interviewer Tony Jones told him the news that had just come through.

Howard's face crumpled and he expressed his horror at the latest of what have become daily atrocities. But he quickly segued into being, at least in part, political.

"What these people are about is preventing Iraq having a democratic future. Now, are we going to give in to that? ...Are we going to say if you murder and kill and bomb people enough, we'll turn our backs and walk away?"

Howard did not have to say who wants to "walk away". Everyone knows that's Mark Latham.

What no one knows is how the politics of the respective arguments for seeing the job through or cutting and running will play out in the Australian electorate for the rest of this year.

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Tonight in Melbourne, Howard will defend the Government's Iraq policy in a major speech. The address to the Institute of Public Affairs comes at a tricky time for him.

The messages from Washington are confusing. Last week Secretary of State Colin Powell said if the Iraqi interim government - being selected by the United Nations and due to take over on July 1 - wanted the US to leave, then it would do so.

It is not clear whether this is just a statement of the obvious or the very early stirrings of an exit strategy.

Certainly Powell said he had no doubt the interim government would welcome the coalition's continued presence, and Howard yesterday played down the comment as dealing with a "hypothetical".

It would appear extraordinarily difficult for the Americans to even contemplate any near-term exit, and there is no evidence the new Iraqi government would want them to leave.

But Hugh White, who heads the Government-funded Australian Strategic Policy Institute, says Powell's remark "raises the distinct possibility that the US will have to negotiate with the interim government on the management of Iraqi security after June 30 - and at least lays out the circumstances under which an American withdrawal becomes thinkable".

The slightest sign in the next few months of an exit strategy being even remotely considered would require a big adjustment by Howard, who would be awkwardly caught.

The PM has foreshadowed that tonight he'll deal with "some of the more absurd arguments that are being advanced at the present time suggesting that we should walk away from our responsibilities". He will make the "point that if the coalition were to retreat from Iraq it would deliver an enormous victory for international terrorism". And he'll insist progress is being made in areas such as health care.

Howard is not taking a step backward on Iraq. Nevertheless it's notable that he emphasises that the main purpose of his Washington trip next month is to lobby for Congress to pass the free trade agreement, rather than playing up his consultations with the President on Iraq. The FTA will be easy pickings - Congress will want to show its gratitude to Australia - so the PM can be confident of a "win". The Iraq discussion is likely to be less heartening.

Howard yesterday was dismissive about a Sydney Morning Herald report that he's likely soon to announce an increase in Australia's commitment to Iraq. He didn't have in mind any increase at present, he said, although he's not ruling out an "adjustment at the margin" sometime.

Since Mark Latham, on a morning radio program in March, first declared he'd hope to have the troops home by Christmas (then quickly hardened this to a firm promise), the situation in Iraq has steadily worsened. Public opinion, at first very negative about the Latham line, has apparently shifted. A Newspoll a fortnight ago found that half those surveyed now thought it had not been worth going to war, and more people supported Latham's policy of home-by-Christmas than Howard's line of leaving the troops in Iraq until at least the second half of next year (47 per cent to 45 per cent).

The revelations about the outrageous violations of human rights at Abu Ghraib prison are further tarnishing the cause, and have implications for the arguments put by the Howard Government. When no weapons of mass destruction were found, the Government shifted increasing weight onto the humanitarian case as a justification for the war. Although the abuse of Iraqi prisoners doesn't negate this, in political terms it reduces its potency.

Also, we've yet to see how far the waves of the prisoner abuse story will spread, as more allegations emerge about who knew or authorised what. It is already seriously undermining Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and appears to have a long way to go before it plays out.

Howard, while strongly condemning the behaviour, mostly seems to see the affair in terms of the propaganda blow that it delivers to the coalition's cause. His argument is that whatever happened, far worse things happened in Saddam Hussein's prisons. This is true but not at all to the point. Howard either fails to see the consequences of these acts in seriously undermining the moral authority of the coalition, or is just taking the electors for fools.

Despite Iraq turning nastier by the day, and therefore, one would presume, worse for Bush, Blair and Howard, ALP strategists are relieved the political debate has shifted back from Iraq to domestic issues.

Many in the Labor Party do not agree with the Latham policy; they believe that, even though joining the war was wrong or unwise, Australia has an obligation to help clean up a mess for which it has some responsibility.